by F. E. Arliss
On a summer-long trip to the Amazonian jungle in the south of Mexico, she’d learned in-depth healing with rare drugs and herbs from the rainforest, communed with bats, and learned to leap from vine to vine using the slightest bit of air. She supposed that was the beginning of her air elemental magic.
The following trip had taken her to the Black Forest of Germany where she’d developed a kinship with an enormous roe buck that she’d ridden through the forest like a wild queen of the wood; met a group of magical rabbit-like creatures called a Wolpertingers that looked like rabbits but had wings and small sets of antlers; she’d had a bit of a wrangle with a werewolf - or in the Black Forest also known as a ‘beerwolf’; made the acquaintance of a foul-tempered house elf known as Max who in no way resembled the charming house elf, Dobby, from the Harry Potter books; danced with wood fairies; and was saved from drunkards by a half calf/half dragon-sort of being called a Bahkauv. It had been simply amazing.
Emery’s last outing before graduating from high school had been a trip to the Badlands of South Dakota. There she had learned to harness wind and lightning due to Deira’s inspirational idea that perhaps Emery, who could pull energy from her surroundings, could weave an energy web just as spiders wove a silk web. The excited jumping spider had explained how baby spiders sometimes escape being eaten just out of the nest by their starving siblings by weaving one long, thin, lighter-than-air silk rope and letting an updraft sweep them to a new place, thus escaping death.
Emery had done it. But in addition to weaving the long string of an energy rope, she’d also studied wind patterns and, taking an enormous risk, had simply run as fast as she could at the time she suspected the most updraft, and had leapt off the highest canyon cliff she could find. She’d used the energy tether to catch the wind, then directed it to the ground and anchored it to a spot. She’d floated like a kite, then learned to ‘walk air’ as she called it. Not wanting to be blown away so she’d never be found again, she had formed the idea of using the string of energy for a tether. It had taken her weeks of practice to get it right.
Not only did ‘walking air’ work - it worked so well she also got struck by lightning. The Benjamin Franklin story should have forewarned her! The storm had given her a beautiful updraft and she’d been enjoying the feeling of flying when a bolt of lightning had snapped the energy tether, hurling her miles away into a deposit of gray ashy mineral that was burning in tiny fires all around her when Emery had finally regained consciousness. She’d always been good with fire, and had scried her spirit muses from the flames of a sage fire two years before. When the lightning struck, she vaguely remembered commanding the fire not to harm her.
When she woke, pulled from her unconscious state forty-eight hours after the lightning strike by a concerned Circling Wind, who was bent over her gently patting her cheeks, Emery remembered muttering to him over and over, “I command fire. I command lightning. I commanded the lightning. I commanded the fire.”
After that, Circling Wind had flown her home to the rural Midwest. A much needed shower had exposed a foot-wide spider-web tattoo that now circled her navel where she’d woven the energy web. It seemed to be engraved in her belly skin by the strange silvery ash that had been burning when she’d come to.
After a few days of rest, she’d first demonstrated the ‘walking wind’ technique to Dorothea, Bertha and Letty using her energy tether to cast to the sky, then anchor to the ground after catching an updraft. A few weeks later, she demonstrated her command of fire and lightning. The first few times had not been pretty and she’d been bruised beneath her skin, and lightly scorched - though that quickly disappeared each time, healed no doubt by her shield skin - and flung about rather violently until she’d learned better control.
The thing none of them had figured out yet, was what the strange, grey-ashy mineral was that formed the silver tattoo when she used fire. The ash still appeared. When she would finish her exercises, she would almost look like a ghost, covered as she was by the pale coating of gray left behind.
The first thing Dorothea had done when they arrived at the University of St. Andrew’s and Emery began her first year studies, was to have a sample of the ashy residue from Emery’s body analyzed in the college lab. It had turned out to be a rarely seen combination of tungsten and gypsum. Tungsten was an energy conveyor, the lab report said. Gypsum was a source of sulphur, calcium and an aluminum detoxifier. Both were minerals found all over the wrinkled canyons of the Badlands.
Once they arrived on the Isle of Eigg, Millicent - a learned scientist (Millicent says science makes concocting magic easier if you actually know what the elements are), had immediately begun teaching Emery in the laboratory. While the girl had groaned in dismay over the endless training in scientific theory, she’d eventually begun to enjoy the experiments - especially when they got to blow things up!
One series of experiments had explained Emery’s ashy covering after working with fire and lightning. The theory was that perhaps these two minerals, tungsten and gypsum, they’d found in the sample from her skin, helped Emery channel energy. The tungsten retained power from lightning, and gypsum protected her by burning to sulphur, then calcifying. The aluminum that was created clearly detoxified her system. After that, Emery never complained about science again.
Sitting now sipping her tea and listening to the conversation among the crones about water magic was giving her a feeling of foreboding. Emery liked dry, hot, fire, and lightning. She liked plants and animals. She liked air. Water, though they were surrounded by it here on Eigg, was not her favorite element. Emery shivered. Water, ugh!
Chapter Three
Ugh, Water!
The foreboding Emery had felt the day before turned out to be a sign. First thing in the morning when she would normally have gone off to meet the ‘weapons master’, a gnarly-muscled, brown-haired man of indeterminate age who was teaching her self-defense, fencing, knife throwing and archery, she instead met a thunder-faced Bertha King standing in the middle of one of the archery circles on the weapons lawn.
Bertha was flanked on each side by a set of identical twins whom Emery had taken to calling Frick and Frack. Emery knew everyone on the island. There weren't quite a hundred people, and she knew their faces and what they did. No one had ever bothered to introduce these two to her and they never seemed to talk. It was as though, as identical twins, they could communicate silently. Once, she’d even observed them swimming off the coast in matching strokes that would have put a Russian Olympic synchronized swim team to shame. Both had waist-length, brunette hair - though it was bleached out to a strange sort of golden-streaked mass that city women would have paid a fortune to achieve at a salon! Their hair was as long as her own silvery-gold cascade of waves, though theirs was braided into intricate patterns that hung down over their shoulders and were laced with a collection of shells, bones, old coins and abalone beads.
Now, both twins, clad in nothing but ragged pairs of nylon swim shorts and seemingly impervious to the chill air, stood staring at her. The one she called Frick held a clump of black that looked to be an ancient wetsuit. The only way Emery had learned to tell Frick from Frack was that Frick’s hair had the odd assortment of coins, abalone discs and small shells knotted into it. Near his ears he had mostly abalone discs. Frack, on the other hand, while also having abalone discs, had mostly coins near his ears - Emery figured they were more comfortable to sleep on - he also had jagged, tooth-like pieces of abalone near the ends of his braids. It was the only difference she’d ever been able to see. Both were around six feet tall, burned a golden brown from the endless days outside, and muscled like a pair of wiry MMA fighters.
Bertha silently handed Emery the wetsuit and wiggled one crooked finger at her. “Change,” Bertha commanded. Emery felt her stomach knot, then trudged over behind the weapons hut and stripped down to her underwear. She’d much rather be learning fencing today than anything having to do with water. She liked fencing; water not so much. Pulling the wetsu
it on was like wriggling into a super-shrunken pair of jeans. Difficult, uncomfortable and frustrating. Bertha, having appeared beside her, said, “You’ll be grateful for it later.” Emery rolled her eyes and huffed.
“For the next year you have to learn water magic. I know it’s not your forte, but you need to be able to master all the elements and, face it, you’ve gotten off easy with air, fire and earth. You might actually have to work for water,” Bertha muttered uncharitably. Although they both knew that the journey to the Amazon had been anything but easy. Emery had almost died there and, if not for Dorothea’s timely intervention, might even have been murdered. Plus, learning to air walk had shaken her innards pretty darn hard a couple of times. She wasn’t sure that was ‘getting off easy’ as Bertha put it.
“I didn’t know you were a water adept,” Emery murmured to Bertha as she struggled with the last few inches of the stubborn wetsuit zipper.
“Yes, I like water. At least, I’m better at water than Dorothea, Letty or Millicent,” Bertha said snidely, then grinned a bit in teasing good humor.
“Your real teachers are going to be Mur and Ray,” she said, shoving Emery none too gently out in front of the two statue-like twins. “This one is Mur,” Bertha said, pointing to Frick of the all-round discs. “That one is Ray,” she added, nodding to Frack with his coins and jagged shells.
“Nice to meet you,” Emery muttered, hoping desperately that she didn’t call them by her already implanted nicknames.
“They’re twins, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Bertha said, grinning. “Their mother only had one name ready, Murray - Lord of the Sea. So when they were born, the first one came out and got named Mur and the second was named Ray. So together, they are the lords of the sea,” Bertha explained. Then muttered under her breath, “Not Frick and Frack.” Emery snorted, covering her face to muffle her embarrassment.
Neither twin had moved or shown signs of having heard any of what they’d said.They’d probably never even heard the words frick and frack in their isolated little world anyway.
“First, you’re going to learn to swim halfway decently, hold your breath, free dive a ways down, sail a skiff and maybe, if there’s a miracle, learn to control a bit of water,” Bertha explained as she combed her stubby fingers through her short gray hair, leaving it in her typical spiked, Einstein-esque, absent-minded way. Then in her ‘no nonsense’ voice proclaimed, “I’ll be watching from the pier,” gesturing to the long jetty of jagged stone that thrust out from the base of the cliff below them. “Mur and Ray will be in charge. Just do the best you can,” Bertha said somewhat doubtfully, then shoved a reluctant Emery into the brick wall that was the two twin’s adjoining shoulders.
Before she knew it, she was clambering down the massive stone steps to the jetty. Frankly, she fumed, water shoes were not the best sort of hiking boots for the trip down to the water. She was going to have to do something about that, she thought, as she almost turned an ankle trying to step down over the ragged edges of the massive blocks.
The darn things looked like they’d been carved by aliens, but according to Millicent, were actually a natural phenomenon called ‘giant steps’. “No shit,” a disgruntled Emery thought darkly. Then glaring at the twin gods of water who had already reached the pier - being used to the trip up and down the giant stones - Emery cast herself into the sea breeze and floated three giant steps at a time down the rest of the descent to the pier. No one had said she couldn’t use her other powers.
For the first time the stony faces of the two gods of the sea changed silently in appearance. Emery couldn’t exactly say what it was on their expressions, but finally Frack simply nodded acceptance at her use of air magic and gestured for her to precede them out onto the jetty.
The next two hours were hell for Emery, or later, as she was carried limply over Frick’s shoulder in a fireman’s lift - all energy completely sapped away by the icy water - it was more accurately descriptive to say that it was a Jotunheim water world hell. Jotunheim was the menacing ice planet the mischievously wicked Loki was from in the Avengers. Who knew that the sea could be cold as an alien planet and stronger than a god...be it a water god, thunder god, or god of mischief. She was completely frozen and exhausted.
Emery suspected that Frick, she meant Mur, was carrying her upside down to get the last of the water out of her lungs. She’d continued to heave up small burps of sea brine most of the way. Each time he took a huge stone step in stride, the accompanying jolt forced more liquid from her gut and lungs. It was disgusting, but Emery couldn’t even feel sorry for having puked water all over Frick’s hairless right calf.
When they reached the top, Frick, wait...Mur, spoke for the first time. Placing her shakily on her feet, he turned to Ray and said in a barely audible grunt, “You carry her next time. She pukes a lot.” Then both turned and disappeared back down the crevasse towards the jetty.
Bertha appeared and helped her divest herself of the wetsuit. Emery didn’t bother putting her clothes back on. She needed a hot bath and didn’t even have the strength to pull on her boots. She simply left everything lying behind the weapons hut and trudged naked, dripping water, into the dark confines of the Abbey. Bertha had arranged for a hot bath and the giant metal tub was immediately occupied by Emery’s shaking form. “Feels great, but yuck, more water,” she muttered, sinking below the surface of the bath water hoping desperately to warm her freezing head. She stayed there, holding her breath for long moments.
When she came back to the surface, Bertha, sitting close to the tub in a straight-back chair said, “Well, at least your breath-holding ability is pretty good!”
“If it wasn’t, I’d already be dead,” Emery croaked. “It’s all that saved me.” She paused, “I’m checking those two weirdos for gills tomorrow,” then slid back under the hot water. Bertha, stunned by Emery’s use of the word ‘weirdos’ sank back in the chair. It was unusual for Emery to denigrate anyone. The fact that she’d called the twins ‘weirdos’ meant that today had been far harder on her than they’d all believed it would be. Emery was typically what one would call ‘plucky’. Rising, she went to discuss things further with the other crones.
Emery shakily pulled herself from the tub, banging her knees, shins and toes in an abnormally uncoordinated series of movements. She gulped down the entire pot of hot, sweet tea that had been left on a tray by her narrow bed, then pulled on her ever-shrinking, flannel pajamas, crawled painfully under the goose-down comforter and drew it over her head. Blackness descended.
Chapter Four
Wind On Water, Bones In Hair
Emery didn’t go back into the water for three days. Practically unable to move, she took her meals in bed and slept the sleep of the spiritually damaged. The crones took turns sitting in her room, worried lines ridging already wrinkled visages. Even Mur and Ray came to take a look.
Ray having lifted the corner of the eiderdown to look at Emery’s greyish face, had simply turned to his brother and said disgustedly, “Weaker’n a kitten.” Then grimaced and tossed the cover back over her face and left the room, Mur trailing behind him.
It was decided that the twins would first teach Emery to sail. That way, she could make use of her affinity for air and be out on the water, not necessarily in it. Hopefully, this exercise would help her lose her dread of the water and bolster her energy by using one of her strengths skillfully.
For the next four months, Emery did nothing but sail all day long in every kind of wind, rain and weather. She enjoyed it. Finally, after having been in the twin’s company for weeks, she was getting used to their strange way of communicating and no longer felt that they were trying to kill her.
When Frack had grunted out, “It was common for sailors in the old days to be unable to swim,” Emery realized that was their way of saying she was doing a good job as a sailor.
Occasionally they would be sailing along and groups of porpoises or dolphins would join them. She loved seeing them flying through the water leaping
and frolicking. Sometimes if she leaned over the side of the boat, she could touch the tops of their upper fin.
They’d spotted a variety of whales as well. Something Emery had never dreamed she’d see in the cold waters of the north Atlantic. Off the coast of southern Mexico she’d often seen humpback whales breaching and was shocked when the whales she saw in the north Atlantic turned out to be far more sleek and pointy-headed than humpbacks. And huge! They’d seen something called a blue whale that had seemed to go on forever as it glided silently past them several meters under the sea off the port side of their small vessel.
Each month they’d take a week-long sail without returning to land. The sailboat, which Mur said was a Hunter Channel 31, turned out to be fairly easy for Emery to handle when she finally got the hang of the color-coded lines, spinning handles that cranked the sails and the constant ducking required when changing direction. Who knew sailing was so much work! Then when you got back to port it was even more work...cleaning, repairing, checking things. Emery was never going to love sailing, though she did like the wind harnessing part of it. To her, that was innate. The rest of it was a pain in the butt.